Crime & Courts

Osaka Ship Dealer, President Suspected of Exporting Cargo Ship to Iran; President Suspected of Declaring False Destination

From the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency website
The cargo ship that was allegedly exported to Iran

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:33 JST, September 27, 2024

An Osaka-based ship dealer and its president suspected of illegally exporting a second-hand cargo ship to Iran have been referred by police to prosecutors.

The Metropolitan Police Department’s Public Security Bureau believes the president, who is in his 60s, and Marukichi Commerce Co. declared a false destination for the ship to customs. Making a false declaration is a violation of the Customs Law.

The ship’s export destination was listed as the United Arab Emirates, but the vessel allegedly ended up in Iran.

The bureau referred the case to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office on Thursday.

According to sources, the president is suspected of submitting documents to the Sakaide Branch Office of Kobe Customs around May 2021 that claimed the ship would be exported to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates. A bureau investigation of the ship’s transit route revealed that the freighter, which weighed 499 tons, departed Japan and traveled through Southeast Asia before arriving at a port in Iran.

Exporting ships to Iran is not prohibited, but there have been reports that Tehran has equipped commercial ships with drones and missiles and converted them into military-use vessels.

The exported ship was built in 1997 and its owners have included the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an incorporated administrative agency in Yokohama. In April 2021, Marukichi Commerce bought the ship for about ¥32 million in a competitive tender.

The bureau investigated the company office and other locations in February on suspicion that the law had been violated.

The company’s president has denied any wrongdoing.

“The manager at the export destination was Iranian, but the company was in the UAE,” the president said to The Yomiuri Shimbun on Thursday. “I didn’t intend to submit false documents. I don’t even know if the ship was taken to Iran.”